


Other Towns And Cities

by Mcusekat



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, M/M, Texting, drunk, gettogether, phone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-07
Updated: 2014-12-07
Packaged: 2018-02-28 12:21:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2732327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mcusekat/pseuds/Mcusekat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil is away in Florida and the rain comes down in London, as usual. Their flat feels colder when he's alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Other Towns And Cities

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from a Camera Obscura song of the same title. This fic is kind of based off of it too. I really, strongly recommend you check out the song because it's probably the most amazing song that ever existed.  
> [read this on Tumblr!](http://philisnotofire.tumblr.com/post/102663152993/other-towns-and-cities)

Dan was having a shit day.

Typical of it to be on such a gloomy winter day, but when was it not gloomy and cold in England. However, that day felt even colder and gloomier than most days and the flat was cold because Phil wasn’t there to turn on the heat when he woke up.

Phil wasn’t there; he was off in sunny Florida visiting family. Dan didn’t mind, really, but he hated being alone on such dismal days.

Dan didn’t roll out of bed until 30 minutes after he woke. He started the coffee, disappointed that Phil wasn’t there to have it made for him. He sat on the counter while it brewed, wondering vaguely when he became so independant on the older boy.

He broke his favourite mug while pouring the coffee in. He stared at it for a few moments before cleaning it up, staring at the sharp ceramic edges in the pool of steaming hot black coffee with regret and self-hatred. It was only 10:30 and he already hated everything.

He figured the day could only get better from here on. He cleaned up the mess quickly, then moved to the lounge.

They hadn’t got cable yet, but they had Netflix so he browsed for awhile. He had a million shows queued up on his “Need to Watch” list, but everything just seemed boring. He wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted to watch, though. Eventually he gave up and resigned to browsing the internet. Tumblr was boring though, and Twitter wasn’t any better.

He needed to edit. He also needed the motivation to edit. Around 10am he climbed out of his seat and walked to the office, thinking about how much he didn’t want to do this. They were being especially slow today, he noticed.  When they did finally boot up,  he just opened up the editing program and just stared at it. He played the video once, twice, a hundred times, but made no changes.

It started to rain outside, and Dan thought of Phil. Phil had always made hot chocolate on rainy days like this. He half-expected Phil to come all the way from Florida and bust in through the door with two mugs. He expected to look over and see him in his lazy sweats and his Lemongrab hoodie with a smile. He wished he were here, if  just to be some other person in this empty house to make Dan feel less lonely.

Dan rested his head on his arm and looked up at the screen. He closed the tab and clicked onto Skype. Phil was, expectantly, offline. It was 6 am in Florida, roughly 4 thousand miles away (he Googled it). Phil wouldn’t be awake now, probably. He thought about texting him, but decided against it. He felt needy and pathetic, like an obsessed girlfriend, except they weren’t even together.

Dan sighed at that. He wished more than anything they were. He had liked Phil for awhile but he never felt it necessary to ruin this good thing they had because he wanted to kiss Phil. And it wasn’t just that either. They lived together, and Dan was petty. He knew if they broke up that he wouldn’t be able to remain in this house with him. And then there was the fans, and the radio show, and-

But he was so lonely. He could find a cheap date at the bar, sure, but the thought of getting even remotely intimate with someone who wasn’t Phil was abhorrent. He was in love.

Dan pushed a hand through his hair and stood. He couldn’t think about this without panicking, nope. He needed to clear his head.

30 minutes later found him walking home from the nearest liquor store with a bottle of Pinot Noir, because, dammit, if he was going to get drunk at 11:30 he was going to do it classily.

He found the expensive wine glasses shut away in the back of their pantry in a box, wrapped up in newspaper. Both him and Phil were incredibly accident prone so they kept the delicate crystal tucked away, but Dan was celebrating. At least he told himself he was. He was not drinking away the rest of his day because he was lonely and sad.

He thought of something to drink to while bringing the bottle to the common. He couldn’t think of anything worthy enough of the $40 he spent on it and instead decided that he was doing this because ‘yolo.’ He sipped at it at first, but instead just drank it all at once. The delicate glass was abandoned and he regressed to laying on the sofa and drinking from the bottle.

Half the bottle later Dan was scrolling through the contacts on his phone. He was lonely, and the rain was pounding at his windows relentlessly. He felt cold to the bone and the carpet was stained red in some places.The TV wasn’t masking it well enough, and he just wanted to talk to Phil.

He didn’t answer the first time. It would be 7 there, and that was usually around the time that Phil woke in London. Dan desperately hoped he kept the same sleeping schedule in Florida.

Phil did answer the fifth time though.

“Phil?” Dan said. He sounded breathless, moreso than he thought he was. His voice was raspy, like he’d been crying. To his surprise, he had been.

“Dan? Is something wrong?” he asked. He had a worried tone, deepened partially by sleep.

Dan breathed a sigh of relief. “I love you,” he drawled, leaning his head against the back of the sofa.

“Dan? Are you drunk? At… 12:30? Are you alright?”

“No. It’s raining. Quite a bit. I miss you.” Dan played with a loose string at the bottom of his sweater. Phil’s voice had calmed him down. The raindrops at the window sounded distant now.

“Dan… I miss you too. I’ll be home next week though. What have you been drinking?”

“Uhh.. Wine. I think.”

“Where did you get wine?” Phil asked, a little more awake.

“Remember when we played in the snow at your parents house. We were filming the Christmas video and after we finished we just laid in the snow until you mum called us in. I kept thinking you were going to kiss me but you didn’t. Why not?”

“God, Dan… I think you should lay down. Sleep this off. Please,” Phil pleaded.

“I wish I had kissed you. It would have been so romantic; just— just us in the snow and the clouds overhead. Like a fucking fairy tale. We had so little to lose back then. Now there’s so much built on us… like the radio show and our channels… I wish it was 2009 again and I could fall in love with you without all these consequences.”

Phil was quiet over the line.

“Phil, do you love me?”

“Dammit Dan of course,” Phil said. His voice was quiet, hushed.

Dan slid his thumb around the opening of the bottle before taking another drink.

“When you come home, are you going to pretend like this never happened?”

“I-”

“‘Cause you do that a lot. You have this terrible habit of just ignoring things that make you uncomfortable and letting things go back to normal.”

“D-”

“God I wish you were here,” Dan muttered.

“Dan, are you okay?” Phil interjected. “Should I call someone to go check on you?”

“I’m fine, please just talk to me, please.”

“Well, can you at least tell me why you’re drunk already? Dan, I’m worried about you.”

“I just had a rough day is all. Phil please,” Dan begged.

“I haven’t an idea what to talk about, Dan.” Phil was quiet, hesitant.

Dan heard the sound of sheets rustling and bed springs creaking as Phil adjusted his position on his bed.

“Remember when we built a christmas tree together?”

“Yes.”

“That was fun. It was so long ago…”

“4 years.”

Dan was quiet. “We fell asleep in the same bed that night, remember? And I guess it isn’t that big of a deal, I mean, friends do that all the time, but…”

“Dan, you’re going to regret saying all this tomorrow. Please just sleep this off and you can call me first thing when you wake.”

“I regret not saying this sooner,  Phil,” Dan sighed. He drank the last bit of the wine and let the glass bottle slide out of his hand. It landed on the carpet with a satisfying thunk.

The world was spinning now and he felt like he was going to fall off. He grasped the edge of the table as he struggled to stand, but fell to the floor instead. He decided against standing back up in favour of laying on the carpet.

Dan heard Phil’s mum in the background. He heard people talking over the clanging of pots and pans. He looked around his empty flat and sighed. There was only silence and rain and the sound of the TV low in the background. It was on a commercial now; someone babbling about this cool new product that would revolutionize the way you did dishes. Dan groped around for the remote, then switched the channel to the news.

“Dan, my mum is almost done with breakfast… I can’t stay on much longer.”

Dan didn’t respond. He curled onto his side instead and watched the window. “It’s so quiet here, even with the TV on. I can’t even focus on anything it’s so distracting.”

“Why don’t you go out once you’ve sobered up? I heard they’ve opened up a new video game store at the plaza. Why don’t you see if you can find something good? We can play it together when I get home.”

“That sounds good. It’s raining though.”

“Take a nap. Sleep it off. It won’t rain forever.”

“You don’t know that. You’re not the weatherman. It might rain for another hundred years and turn London into an ocean.” Dan did feel a bit tired, though. He always did after he drank, which made him boring as hell at parties.

“Then I’ll come over and fish you out. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Dan heard Phil breathe a sigh of relief. “Are you okay Dan?”

“Yeah. I already said.”

“Promise you won’t do anything stupid until I get back?”

“I promise.” Dan rolled onto his stomach and started messing with the carpet.

“Bye.”

Dan stared at his fingers for a moment before responding. “Bye.”

~

Dan woke around 2am. He was fairly sober, but his head was still buzzing a bit. He reached over and grabbed his phone and saw a text from Phil.

_‘Are you feeling okay?’_

It would be around 8pm in Florida, so evening.

 _‘Better.’_ He looked out the window and added;  _‘It stopped raining.’_

He was on the sofa, with one leg draped over the edge and his head in a strange position that would definitely cause him pain later. He stood shakily and grabbed his phone, then hobbled down the hall to his room.

His phone lit up as soon as he laid down.

_‘Do you regret saying everything? Should we just forget what happened or..’_

Dan didn’t answer quickly. Instead he laid back and thought about it awhile. He didn’t want things to go back to normal for sure. All those years of pretending had worn him out, and telling was probably the best thing for him to do whether Phil reciprocated or not.

_‘No. Definitely do not forget.’_

_‘Well…’_

_‘Well…’_

_‘I don’t think the world would end if we gave this a shot…’_

Dan’s breath caught in his throat. He looked over the words again and again, making sure they were real. He took a deep breath, smiling.

The nerves were still there, of course. Phil liking him back wouldn’t make things any easier if they broke up. It would, however, save him the pain of having to deal with an unrequited love.

_‘Okay.’_


End file.
